I have some great friends from school but looking back on it the actual education was, for the most part, pretty indifferent. I love science & technology and I’m utterly absorbed by history, current affairs and all forms of general knowledge. Maths is a bit of bugger, but I’m still plugging away at beating it into submission. At least, like all nerds, I now have a massive computer warming up my study.
How was it possible that school left me so unengaged? Maybe it was me? I do wonder if that’s just the lot of the pubescent boy; a cruel trick played on me by dissembling nature. I have the excuse that I was in a child at the time but, actually, I just think the system wasn’t very good. Bog standard comprehensives? No thanks.
I do remember politicians of the day having a who’s got the best sound-bite contest, a game they’re still trying to perfect. It has become nearly impossible to have a constructive public discussion about almost anything important because the noise of the political game, amplified by the media, drowns out rationality.
Anyway, I’d really like my grandchildren to have a chance to improve on my dismal educational showing (My children did pretty well, Gilberts 2.0 improved on the previous version), so I’ll give considerable thought to what the candidates say (and have done) about education the next time I get the chance to cast my vote. In the meantime, I’ll buy the little folks some books.
P.S. The school of hard knocks seems to have beaten something approximating good sense into me, I think.